This invention relates to a machine for forming large cylindrical bales of crop material, commonly called round bales, in a roll forming region. More specifically, it is concerned with apparatus which permits the machine operator working from a cab within the towing vehicle, to receive a signal that tells when the crop roll has reached a predetermined size and is ready for discharge.
Historically, it has been the custom to harvest forage crops by mowing the particular crop, letting it dry in the field, forming the dried crop material into windows and passing a hay-baling machine over and along these windrows to form the crop material into rectangular bales. Recent practice has shown that the formation of crop material into large compact rolls, rather than rectangular bales as formerly done, permits the crop material to be deposited in roll form and left in fields for extended periods of time. The ability to leave these rolled bales in fields obviates the additional steps required in the transitional rectangular baling process of gathering the bales and transporting them to a storage area protected from the elements. This new technique of forming large round bales has created a baling system that can be conducted by one person. This is in marked constrast to the traditional practice of forming rectangular bales where the labor of several people was required to effect the cutting, drying, windrowing, baling, gathering and storing of the crop material.
Several methods of forming compact cylindrical rolls of crop material have evolved through the years. The most successful of these methods involves the forming of crop rolls by picking up a swath or windrow of material from the field and directing it onto a lower conveyor. This conveyor transports the material to a a roll or bale forming region where an upper apron or flight of belts, usually positioned above and adjacent the conveyor, moves in a suitable direction to rotate the crop material with which it is brought into contact. The increasing popularity of these crop roll forming machines has seen their use broaden from rolling wintering forage for livestock to rolling high protein crops, such as alfalfa, for dairy livestock. Therefore, these machines are the focal point of many ideas for developing both labor-saving and time-saving apparatus.
Regardless of whether the crop roll is formed above the ground on a conveyor or is formed by rolling along th ground, all prior crop roll forming machines require the operator, who is located in the operator's area of a prime moving vehicle, such as a tractor, to continually monitor the size of the crop roll being formed within the roll forming region of the machine. This monitoring process entails the operator viewing rearwardly over his shoulder the roll forming machine, as well as observing to the front of the prime moving vehicle to ensure that the path of travel that is negotiated is along a preformed windrow of crop material. This is obviously a difficult and tiring procedure, especially when it is realized that the round bale forming operation for large farms can take as long as 8 to 10 hours a day. There is an additional compelling reason for the continual monitoring of the size of the bale within the roll forming machine, since an oversized bale can damage the bale forming means or upper apron which envelopes the expanding roll of crop material. Should the amount of crop material fed into the roll forming region exceed the capacity of the baler, the bale forming means could be permanently damaged and ejection of the bale utilizing the normal procedures may be difficult or virtually impossible.
Prior roll forming machines use some sort of a visual or audio indicator mounted on the crop roll forming machine to indicate when the bale is full-sized. There are several inherent disadvantages to either of these approaches. The visual indicator method still requires the operator to look rearwardly over his shoulder during the bale forming operation at what typically is a needle on a calibrated scale that moves as the bale expands toward the full size. The operator, utilizing this type of a system, must still continue to perform the difficult task of controlling the forward movement of the tractor and the towed roll forming machine along its desired path of travel while monitoring the growth of the bale to his rear. Should the operator be preoccupied with negotiating a particularly difficult stretch of terrain with the tractor and the roll forming machine, it is a relatively easy matter to inadvertently overfill the roll forming chamber. Thus, this type of a bale size monitoring system suffers both from requiring the operator to look rearwardly while the tractor and roll forming machine move forwardly across a field and from having a full size indicator that could go unobserved by the operator during the most critical portion of the bale forming process.
The audial alarm for full bale size system used by some commercial manufacturers employs a bell or noise making apparatus on the roll forming machine itself. When the bale is full sized, a mechanical linkage causes the bell or noise making apparatus to sound as a warning to the operator to stop the baling process. This system suffers from the principal disadvantage of having the alarm signal often be drowned out by the combined noise of the towing tractor and the operation of the roll forming machine. This combined noise level of the tractor and the roll forming machine in essence causes the operator to continue to monitor thesize of the bale by observing to the rear during the baling process to determine when the bale is full sized. Additionally, the widespread use of cabs that are well sealed accoustically to minimize the noise levels reaching the operators make it impractical to use audial signals that originate outside the cabs of the modern tractors of today.
The foregoing problems are solved in the design of the machine comprising the present invention by providing a full bale alarm system that automatically signals the operator of the roll forming machine through a remote indicator that the bale is fully sized and ready for discharge.